Shinobu Hindert is a Certified Financial Planner™ professional, money expert, and creator of Empowered Planning, LLC. She spent the first half of her career working for some of the largest financial institutions in the United States, including Smith Barney and Fidelity Investments. As a financial adviser, she created personalized financial plans for high-net-worth individuals all across the country, overseeing more than $350 million in client assets.
Now Shinobu has taken all her knowledge and created a simple, proven method for teaching personal finance. She has delivered over five hundred live workshops covering a wide range of topics, from budgeting to estate planning. Her goal is to simplify the complex world of investing and empower women everywhere to reach financial freedom.
Shinobu Hindert, a certified financial planner and author of investing in your superpower, join ‘Forbes Talks’ to give personal finance advice for 2024.
0:00 Introduction
0:32 A Fresh Start To Your Finances For 2024
1:47 Tips For Creating A Budget
4:26 What Is The Economic Landscape?
6:02 Tips For Paying Off Debt
8:53 More Smart Money Moves
13:30 Credit Cards And Debt
17:46 Final Money Advice
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Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:
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More From Forbes: http://forbes.com
Forbes covers the intersection of entrepreneurship, wealth, technology, business and lifestyle with a focus on people and success.
Now Shinobu has taken all her knowledge and created a simple, proven method for teaching personal finance. She has delivered over five hundred live workshops covering a wide range of topics, from budgeting to estate planning. Her goal is to simplify the complex world of investing and empower women everywhere to reach financial freedom.
Shinobu Hindert, a certified financial planner and author of investing in your superpower, join ‘Forbes Talks’ to give personal finance advice for 2024.
0:00 Introduction
0:32 A Fresh Start To Your Finances For 2024
1:47 Tips For Creating A Budget
4:26 What Is The Economic Landscape?
6:02 Tips For Paying Off Debt
8:53 More Smart Money Moves
13:30 Credit Cards And Debt
17:46 Final Money Advice
Subscribe to FORBES: https://www.youtube.com/user/Forbes?sub_confirmation=1
Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:
https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript
Stay Connected
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Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes
More From Forbes: http://forbes.com
Forbes covers the intersection of entrepreneurship, wealth, technology, business and lifestyle with a focus on people and success.
Category
🛠️
LifestyleTranscript
00:00 (upbeat music)
00:02 - Hi everyone, I'm Rose Marie Miller
00:05 here with Shunabu Hendert,
00:07 a certified financial planner
00:08 and author of "Investing Is Your Superpower"
00:12 here to tell us six smart money moves
00:14 to kickstart your 2024.
00:17 Thank you so much for joining me today, Shunabu.
00:20 - Thanks for having me here, Rose.
00:23 - Absolutely.
00:24 So I'm wondering, what was the criteria you used
00:28 to create these money moves before you get into them?
00:31 - I wanted to give everyone a fresh look, a fresh start,
00:36 that if you are not on top of your finances,
00:39 what is a good place to start?
00:41 Because that is one of the biggest questions I get
00:43 from people is, where do I even begin?
00:46 And that's what I kept in mind
00:48 coming up with these six different moves
00:50 for your money for 2024.
00:52 - All right, well, let's get into them.
00:54 What's number one?
00:56 - Number one is review and update your budget.
01:00 So there is no way around this.
01:02 You have to look at those numbers and have transparency.
01:05 This is a good time to do it
01:06 'cause you have a full year under your belt,
01:09 but you wanna take a look at where your money is going
01:12 every single month.
01:13 And a great way to do this is to reflect on last year
01:17 and just ask yourself,
01:19 is this how much I thought I was spending every month?
01:21 Am I spending more?
01:22 Am I doing a little bit less?
01:24 And then you want to adjust your budget this year
01:27 to align with your financial goals
01:29 and potentially any lifestyle changes or updates.
01:32 If you're introducing a new addition to the family,
01:35 maybe you're making a big move,
01:36 you wanna incorporate that
01:38 so you set yourself up for success
01:40 and you don't blow out your budget
01:42 and then ashaming yourself for it
01:44 when you knew these expenses were coming.
01:47 - So what are some of the tips you have
01:48 for creating a budget?
01:52 - First, starting with how much money you're spending
01:55 and you wanna look at your fixed expenses.
01:58 What are the essentials?
02:00 Things that you know no matter what you can't live without.
02:03 So that's gonna be your rent or mortgage, groceries, gas,
02:08 those types of expenses.
02:09 And then you wanna take a look at the other play area,
02:12 which we call the discretionary expenses.
02:15 What do those look like?
02:16 And can you decrease them?
02:18 And what are your non-negotiable?
02:20 So for some people, maybe a gym membership
02:23 isn't a negotiable,
02:24 even though they could potentially live without it,
02:26 they're like, I'm not going to.
02:28 So we don't want your budget to be so stringent
02:31 that you feel like you don't have flexibility
02:33 or you're not having fun with it.
02:34 So this isn't supposed to be a restrictive exercise,
02:38 it's just to give you transparency
02:40 of what your outlay looks like every month.
02:42 So you can then understand where are the areas
02:45 you can start to save a little bit more.
02:49 - Well, let's go on into number two.
02:50 What is the second smart money move
02:52 that we should incorporate for 2024?
02:55 - The second move is to set clear financial goals
03:00 for yourself.
03:00 And we wanna be clear because I compare it
03:04 to when people say they wanna lose weight.
03:06 And they're like, I just wanna lose some weight.
03:08 Well, we wanna know how much weight is that?
03:10 Because if you don't tie real numbers to this,
03:13 a couple of things could happen
03:14 is you kick the can down the road,
03:16 or you don't hit your financial goal
03:18 and then you feel bad about it.
03:20 And neither one of those are really what we're looking for.
03:23 So you wanna set your goal, it's supposed to be fun.
03:25 So if you find yourself where you're like,
03:27 just your body doesn't feel good, you don't feel good,
03:30 you're doing it wrong, get some fresh air and go back to it.
03:33 And you want to take a look at where you can save.
03:37 And then if you said, I wanna take the whole family
03:40 on a vacation to see a national park this year,
03:42 start at the end.
03:44 How much money is that gonna take?
03:46 How much money do you need to put into a bucket
03:48 every single month to get there?
03:50 And then how many months is it gonna take you to save?
03:52 Then you can look at that and say,
03:54 okay, I don't just have to save more money every month,
03:57 but I'm doing this so we can all go on this family vacation.
04:00 That's way more exciting, more motivating.
04:03 And then you wanna set metrics.
04:05 So maybe it's every month you're looking,
04:07 every other month you're seeing, am I on target?
04:10 If the vacation costs $5,000,
04:12 how much do we have saved so far?
04:14 Where can we get a little bit more?
04:16 Because again, you want to set yourself up for success
04:19 and make sure that you can hit these goals
04:22 by putting the proper dollar amount to them.
04:25 - And I'm wondering, do you think 2024 is the,
04:31 are we in the economic landscape to prioritize things like,
04:35 I don't know, going on vacation
04:37 versus maybe saving a little bit more for food?
04:41 - Yeah, I think everybody is feeling it.
04:44 I think all across the country,
04:46 even though when we look at the inflation reports
04:49 that are coming out and it's saying, okay, it's muted,
04:52 we're not really feeling it,
04:53 interest rates are kind of staying the same,
04:55 households are feeling it.
04:57 My clients are spending more at the grocery store,
04:59 I'm spending more at the grocery store.
05:00 And I think people are looking more at prices
05:04 than they ever have,
05:05 and they're still spending more than they ever have.
05:07 So it is important to go back to step one
05:10 and to review your budget.
05:11 What is your baseline that it takes you
05:13 to keep your household running,
05:14 to make sure that everyone's kind of happy and healthy,
05:16 and then you're looking at other financial goals.
05:19 And if it's not something
05:21 that you can start saving for right away,
05:23 I wouldn't neglect it altogether.
05:26 So if you're looking at that and you're going,
05:27 well, I'm not really in a position to be saving
05:29 tons of money for a vacation,
05:31 just put in any dollar amount you have,
05:33 open up a separate account.
05:34 It's really just about creating habits around saving.
05:38 So when you can kind of come up for air,
05:40 let's say it's next year,
05:41 you're feeling a little bit more financially comfortable.
05:43 You can look at that account and go, you know what?
05:45 I already have $300 in there.
05:47 I already have $1,000 in there.
05:48 Now I can put in a little bit more,
05:51 but you're not turning around and going,
05:52 oh, there's nothing in there or there's no account.
05:55 So anything that you could afford to stash away for yourself
05:58 I would absolutely do just to create that healthy habit.
06:03 - Well, I don't know the rest of your money moves,
06:05 but I do have this question about debt.
06:07 So is it wise to save while also paying off debt?
06:12 - Yes, I'm gonna like ring a bell.
06:14 That's music to my ears.
06:16 You want to do that.
06:17 I think we can get uber focused on paying down debt
06:20 and not planning for that rainy day.
06:23 So what can happen is if you are so focused
06:27 on paying down your debt and you're taking extra money
06:29 that you have coming in each month,
06:31 you're throwing that at your debt,
06:33 then an unexpected expense comes up.
06:35 You don't have cash set aside for it.
06:38 You have to put it on a credit card.
06:40 That is so demoralizing just that act
06:42 because you feel like I've been doing all this work
06:44 and now it's getting wiped out.
06:46 So it's the same thing where let's just say you have,
06:49 you know, extra $100 at the end of every single month,
06:52 you can put 50% of that towards paying down debt
06:55 and then 50% towards your savings.
06:58 So you want to be able to do a little bit of both.
07:00 So you're not just saving money
07:03 and you're not just paying down your debt.
07:05 You want to do a little bit of both
07:06 to provide yourself with wiggle room,
07:08 but also creating habits for being able to achieve
07:12 what we call like multi-goal planning
07:15 because we're very rarely singularly focused
07:19 where we only have one thing that we're working for.
07:22 So you want to be able to juggle these things
07:23 and know it's the turtle that wins this race,
07:27 not the rabbit.
07:27 And you want to just get into those habits of,
07:29 okay, even though I can't pay all of my debt off next month,
07:33 I'm putting a little bit more towards it extra.
07:35 I'm going to end up by putting, you know,
07:37 an extra $100 towards that per month.
07:39 I'm shaving off five years at the end of it.
07:42 And in the meantime, I'm also building my savings account.
07:45 - And which one, okay, I know we're lingering on number two,
07:48 but which one do you think should be prioritized,
07:51 saving or paying down the debt?
07:54 - Well, for your debt,
07:55 you want to definitely pay the minimums.
07:58 And then on top of that, I would do a little bit of both.
08:01 So if you take all your extra money
08:03 and put that down towards the debt,
08:05 you don't have any wiggle room
08:07 that if something were to happen,
08:09 and you know, for me, I used to drive a lot for my jobs.
08:11 And one day I went in, I had a flat tire.
08:14 I went in, I had two nails that they were not able
08:17 to patch through in two different tires.
08:19 And then they looked at the back and they're like,
08:21 "Hey, you don't have any tread."
08:22 And all of a sudden I spent a couple thousand dollars
08:24 on tires 'cause they upsold me.
08:26 I didn't know what I was buying.
08:27 I talked to a friend later, they're like,
08:29 "You didn't have to buy the fanciest tires out there."
08:31 I didn't know, but it's for those cases
08:34 where you're not then throwing it on a credit card
08:36 and now you're trying to dig yourself out of that again.
08:38 So you do want to be able to manage both.
08:41 Anything that's high interest that you want to prioritize
08:44 and pay that towards the highest interest rate first.
08:47 And I'll touch on that a little bit more
08:48 'cause it is one of the smart money moves,
08:51 but I hope that answers the question.
08:53 - Yes, it does.
08:55 All right, and onto number three of the smart money moves.
08:59 - Number three is also piggybacking
09:01 on what we were just talking about.
09:02 You want to build or boost your emergency fund.
09:06 I think hitting on what you said,
09:07 2024, we're not necessarily feeling
09:10 like we're in this really healthy economy
09:14 or even with our wages,
09:15 keeping up with what costs have been increasing too.
09:18 So if you're in a single income household,
09:21 you really want to have three to six months worth
09:24 of your monthly expenses set aside in cash.
09:28 And cash is now paying upwards of four to 5%.
09:32 So that's a nice little benefit that we get
09:36 as opposed to a few years ago where you were getting zero.
09:39 So you want to build that up and just, again,
09:42 start with a lump sum that you can afford to put in
09:45 to kickstart the account.
09:47 Have it separate from your checking account.
09:49 So it's not all tied there in together.
09:51 You want to see it separate
09:52 and maybe make it a little difficult for you to tap that.
09:55 So you're not just going into there every single month
09:58 if you want to spend a little bit of extra money.
10:00 And it might take you three years to build this
10:03 because again, you don't want to uber focus on it
10:05 and only throw everything in there,
10:07 but start putting money in there.
10:09 And if you're in a two income household,
10:13 then we might say, okay, closer to 3% could be okay.
10:16 But you do want to consider
10:17 how long have you been in your career?
10:19 Are you a high income earner?
10:21 How many of your jobs are readily available
10:23 in case you were to lose the job that you have now?
10:26 So you want to look at that and say, based on that,
10:28 how many months could I really keep myself afloat?
10:31 And you want to focus on building up that emergency fund.
10:34 - And I noticed you said cash.
10:37 And for some people, this is obvious.
10:39 Okay, of course it'd be cash
10:40 instead of putting the money into,
10:43 or using credit to pay things.
10:45 But there are some people out there who firmly believe
10:47 you should use credit and not cash to pay for things.
10:51 Why did you say cash?
10:53 - Because you want to be able to quickly access it.
10:57 If you're putting everything on credit,
10:59 it really depends on number one,
11:00 how high is your credit limit?
11:02 So how much can you put on there?
11:04 And then things like rent and mortgage,
11:06 there's times where you cannot use your credit card
11:08 to pay for those things,
11:10 that you want to keep that flexible that you have the cash.
11:13 And it's really just about safety and security
11:15 that you know at the end of the day,
11:17 you have that money, again, readily available
11:20 and the balance is the balance.
11:21 And credit cards can charge you 24% interest.
11:26 So yes, you could put it on there,
11:27 but if we were to paint a scenario
11:29 where you unexpectedly lost your job
11:32 and your expenses stay the same, you have to pay them,
11:34 you might quickly hit that credit card limit,
11:37 or you might rack up credit card debt
11:39 where you're paying 24% interest.
11:41 And at the same time, you don't have income coming in.
11:44 So we're really trying to look at
11:46 how can we create the most flexibility in your lifestyle
11:49 and also keep it safe.
11:52 - All right, well, onto number four.
11:55 Number four, yes.
11:57 - Number four, I would organize your debt
12:00 by highest interest rate and start to pay down
12:03 anything extra that you have each month
12:05 towards your high interest rate debt.
12:07 So more than likely that is credit card debt,
12:09 but you do want to organize everything that you have
12:13 by interest rate, the balance, who the lender is,
12:17 and just come up with a debt payoff plan.
12:19 You can use an app like Debt Payoff Planner,
12:22 and they're gonna provide you with visual tools,
12:24 they'll give you some evaluations
12:27 of how you can pay off your debt a little bit faster.
12:30 But with this, you also don't wanna be so focused
12:33 on paying down your debt that you stop saving as well.
12:36 So keep that organized.
12:38 And I say that because sometimes people will
12:41 attach themselves to a debt that they feel like,
12:44 okay, that's the largest balance,
12:45 I wanna pay that off first,
12:47 but it might be the lowest interest rate.
12:49 And you want to really tackle the one that's charging you,
12:53 the double digits, so that way you can start
12:55 to make a dent in the balance.
12:57 - So speaking of debt, I wanna touch on student loans
13:00 for a little bit.
13:01 Do you think someone should rush
13:03 to pay off their student loans,
13:05 or if that's something they should do kind of slow
13:07 and steady?
13:08 - It really depends on their overall situation,
13:12 but again, organizing it by interest rate.
13:14 If they're paying 6% on that,
13:17 and they have an outstanding credit card
13:19 that they're paying 24% interest on,
13:21 you want to go after the 24% interest rate card first
13:26 before you're throwing so much extra
13:28 at the student loan debt.
13:29 - And people have multiple credit cards.
13:33 How many credit cards do you think a person should have,
13:37 or the reasonable number?
13:38 - It depends.
13:40 I think what can happen is we get really excited
13:43 about these rewards that we get on credit cards,
13:46 or points, and we get different things,
13:48 or a preferred store will give us a credit card.
13:51 So the amount doesn't necessarily matter
13:54 as much as your total credit limit available,
13:58 and you wanna keep that under 30%.
14:00 So let's say you have one credit card,
14:03 your limit's $1,000.
14:05 You don't wanna put more than $300 on there
14:09 every single month if you're not paying
14:11 the balance off all the time.
14:13 So if you had six credit cards,
14:16 and you had a revolving limit that was under that 30, 40%,
14:20 that's a healthy credit score that you could have.
14:23 If you have a credit card that's $10,000,
14:27 that's your limit, and you've put 9,000 on there,
14:30 and it stays around that 9,000 mark,
14:32 your credit's gonna go down every single month,
14:34 even though you only have one card.
14:36 Because the credit bureaus are looking at
14:38 the same thing that I'm talking about,
14:39 is if you were to lose your job,
14:41 do you have enough credit available
14:44 to keep yourself afloat?
14:45 So they look at your revolving credit.
14:47 How much do you have available every single month?
14:49 So it's not necessarily how many credit cards you have,
14:52 it's the access that you have to credit
14:54 on a month-over-month basis.
14:56 - Okay, and number five, we're on number five.
15:00 - Number five is to optimize your retirement savings.
15:04 And when we talk about this multiple goal planning,
15:07 it's challenging to be able to focus on saving for a car,
15:12 paying down your student loans, buying a home,
15:15 oh, now I gotta worry about retirement.
15:16 And what people do is they tend to say,
15:18 well, you know what, let me just tackle one of these first.
15:20 We wanna be able to do a little bit of everything.
15:22 So I would, if you have a company-sponsored plan
15:26 like a 401(k), start there, that's kind of the easiest path.
15:30 Increase your contributions by one to 3%.
15:33 Just do it.
15:35 See how it feels after a few pay cycles.
15:38 And if you don't really feel the pain from that,
15:41 ask yourself in three months to do a little bit more.
15:44 And the amount that you start with, it doesn't matter.
15:46 It's just to be that habit of actively participating
15:50 and then automate it.
15:52 If you don't have a 401(k) or a company plan,
15:55 you can go to many different financial providers,
15:58 open up your own retirement account, but automate it.
16:01 You wanna get it off your plate so it's happening
16:04 and you don't have to think about it every single month.
16:06 And then every three months, see if you can increase it,
16:09 even if it's just by 1%.
16:13 - Once again, we touched on this in the first question.
16:16 Is this, is 2024 the year to be putting more
16:21 for a later year than what we have now?
16:24 Should we be keeping all the money we can now?
16:28 - It depends on your bandwidth.
16:30 So if you're in a situation where you're not able
16:32 to meet your monthly bills,
16:34 you don't wanna be focusing on future goals.
16:36 However, if you never focus on the future goals,
16:40 you have to ask yourself who is gonna be there for you
16:43 when you're ready to retire.
16:44 If someone's not gonna be there to write you a check,
16:47 and for some people, they do have that advantage
16:50 because they have a big inheritance coming to them
16:52 and they know that, and they're like, you know what?
16:54 I don't really have to focus on that.
16:55 But for other people, if you don't have anybody doing that,
16:58 you're really just kicking the can down the road
17:00 and what's gonna happen when you go to retire?
17:02 When we look at social security,
17:04 it pays really a fraction of what your income is right now.
17:07 So somewhere that money is gonna have to come
17:10 and it's most likely to have to come from you saving it now.
17:13 So you can kind of push yourself, have a stretch goal,
17:17 challenge yourself and say, let me just do it and see,
17:20 well, where else can I save money this year?
17:23 If I wanna put X amount of dollars towards retirement,
17:26 where can I make up that difference?
17:27 And maybe it's going to discount grocers.
17:31 Maybe it's not going out to eat as much.
17:34 Like trying to find ways to say, okay,
17:35 I can squeeze it a little bit over here
17:37 and make up for it on the back end.
17:39 And I'm taking care of myself.
17:41 You really wanna look at that retirement savings
17:43 as you taking care of your future self.
17:46 - Well, going out to eat surely has me in a choke hold.
17:50 Oh, that's something I'm gonna challenge myself
17:53 to not do in 2024.
17:55 But onto the sixth and final smart money move,
17:58 what do you have for us?
18:00 - Leverage tools and resources that are available.
18:03 There's a lot of people that put this stress on themselves
18:06 to say like, well, I don't know this financial stuff.
18:08 And you don't need to be an expert.
18:10 You just need to kind of get more involved
18:13 for your comfort level.
18:14 So I would tailor how you digest financial information
18:17 to your own preferred style of learning.
18:20 So something like this platform right now,
18:22 I love learning like that, listening, watching,
18:25 it sits better than just reading for me.
18:27 But if someone likes to read, pick up a book.
18:30 I have my book, "Investing is Your Superpower."
18:32 That's a great way to do it.
18:34 Tune into podcasts,
18:35 but make it something you do on a regular basis.
18:38 So you're kind of desensitizing yourself
18:40 to talking about money or listening about money.
18:43 It doesn't feel like this heavy lift activity.
18:46 You're just like, oh, this is part of my weekly routine.
18:48 I'm just tuning in for this, you know, 30 minutes
18:50 to be able to make sure that I'm staying in touch
18:52 with that side of my personal life.
18:55 And then utilize the financial tools that are available.
18:57 So if you're talking about budgeting,
18:59 there's apps like You Need a Budget, PocketGuard,
19:03 that you can plug some numbers in and do that.
19:05 I talked about Debt Payoff Planner
19:07 for paying off your debt.
19:08 And then automation.
19:10 When anything that you're doing with your finances,
19:12 the more you can automate it, the better,
19:14 because the biggest challenge
19:15 that I think most Americans have is time.
19:19 So the more we could just free up your time
19:21 by automating this, you know,
19:22 okay, I'm taking care of my financial self,
19:25 and it's not taking such a drain for me to do physically
19:28 or manually every single week.
19:31 - Well, Shinobu, I can't have you here,
19:33 and you have a book called "Investing is Your Superpower"
19:35 without asking you at least one investing question.
19:38 What is your biggest piece of advice for a beginner
19:42 who wants to start investing?
19:44 - To just get started.
19:47 There's lots of funds, it could be ETFs,
19:50 that have a mix of stock bonds and cash inside of there.
19:55 So rather than just picking a stock,
19:56 I would pick a diversified fund.
19:59 And there's, for most places, like a Fidelity, Vanguard,
20:03 they've gotten rid of the minimums.
20:05 SoFi, all these places where you can just go in and say,
20:07 I have $10 that I wanna start with every single month,
20:10 and then start investing.
20:12 And again, your future self will thank you,
20:15 and you'll also get more comfortable with the platforms,
20:18 with how the markets are moving.
20:19 You just wanna get more involved.
20:21 - Well, this has been amazing.
20:23 Thank you so much for joining me today.
20:26 - Thank you, Rose.
20:27 (upbeat music)
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